An assailant believed to have been dressed in a Santa Claus costume opened fire at a crowded nightclub in Istanbul during New Year’s celebrations, killing at least 39 people and wounding close to 70 others in what the province’s governor described as a terror attack.

Antonio Guterres is starting his first day as the new secretary-general of the United Nations with an appeal to all people in the world to make a New Year’s resolution: “Let us resolve to put peace first.” The former Portuguese prime minister and U.N.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is quoted as saying in a New Year’s message that his country’s development of banned long-range missiles is in “final stages.” Kim’s address was monitored by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency on Sunday.

A federal judge in Texas on Saturday ordered a halt to another Obama administration effort to strengthen transgender rights, this time over health rules that social conservatives say could force doctors to violate their religious beliefs.

Antonio Guterres takes the reins of the United Nations on New Year’s Day, promising to be a “bridge-builder” but facing an antagonistic incoming U.S. administration led by Donald Trump who thinks the world body’s 193 member states do nothing except talk and have a good time.

There were no big New Year’s celebrations for the Iraqi men, women and children who narrowly escaped the fighting in Mosul, only to wait for hours under armed guard while the fighting-age males among them were cleared of links to the Islamic State.

While Californians passed a ballot measure to bring back bilingual education in the upcoming school year, educators say a challenge to getting the programs started will be finding more bilingual teachers.